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environment, food, clothing, shelter? we do. weyerhaeuser -- growing ideas. >> the united states condemns, in the strongest terms, this out raiders and shocking attack. >> this week, four americans died as anti-american violence spreads. the political fallout. >> an apology for america's values is never the right course. >> the ramifications of the chicago teachers strike. >> this is a strike of choice. it's the wrong choice for the children. >> in pennsylvania, challenging the new voter i.d. a lot. >> it's a criminal offense against democracy. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--

>> someone releases a crudely made anti-muslim video and four americans died in libya. protesters stormed the american embassies in egypt and yemen. suddenly, the campaign is no longer about the key economy but the way the president is conducting foreign policy. >> the administration was wrong standing by a statement sympathizing for those who had breached our embassy. >> , romney has a tendency to shoot first and aim later. as president, i have learned you cannot do that. "the american embassy in cairo said that they condemned the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of muslims. at 10:15 a.m., a crowd began to gather outside of the cairo embassy. protesters scaled the wall and

pulled down the american flag. at 4:00 p.m. eastern time, a gunman attacked the american consulate in benghazi resulting in the death of four americans including ambassador christopher stevens. >> this attack should affect all people of all faves around the world. >> romney issued a statement saying it is disgraceful that the obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks. >> at 10:00 p.m. eastern, they quoted the obama and demonstration saying the statement by the cairo embassy was not issued by washington. there reported the same statement on abc news. on thursday, a wall street journal editorial said his political faux pas was to offend

a pundit class who wants to concede the foreign-policy debate to obama without thinking seriously about this issue. do you agree with that, evan? >> no. this is all war room bluster. something happens and you have to attack right away? this is mindless. i don't think it will stick. >> you said you would have told them to go to hell. any thoughts on that? >> i surely believe that the timeline you gave completely vindicates what romney did. you said a statement was issued in the afternoon. they were silent about it. no withdrawal, nothing, until romney said it was a disgrace, which it was. then all of a sudden, they say it was not authorized. that was the only statement coming out of this administration.

until romney said it was a disgrace, the obama administration said nothing. >> your thoughts on this? >> protection of the embassy is ultimately the responsibility of the host government. that is the established white 3d. having invented at embassy several times in the past, we have many security people there. >> there are no marines in

libya. >> there are in tripoli. >> this timeline of what he failed to do or did do is a political matter. the statement issued by romney criticizing the actions of the embassy before the demonstration took place makes the statement before that took place when the embassy was talking about the provocation, there was just no time. >> "the parsons of the press corps were offended by this debate." i get the sense they are delighted with this debate. how was romney damaged by this? >> in part, the way they characterized this first message by the embassy, there are others to read this differently.

they issued that statement in hopes of avoiding a protest and alerting the egyptian people that they did not embrace this offensive movie. no matter what the initial intentions were of anyone, once an american or four americans were killed, now was the time to cut the politics out. obviously, republicans and democrats have different foreign-policy views. nothing wrong with that, percolate legitimate debate. when americans have been killed, americans pulled together. when it comes to public damage, that is where the real mistake was made. >> this piety did not exist in

the iraq war. all of a sudden, this if an american dies, this is a story treated by the media. it did not work. >> it never worked. >> they never said it was an apology. they never said that word. >> it was a junior press officer at the embassy wanting to say something nice. >> i thought it was the senior guy? >> he is a press die. not the secretary of state or the president. you have this instant reaction, rapid-fire. camp without thinking

for one second blast away and puts romney in a position where he has to -- >> the embassy issues a statement. who cares? they see this as the only statement out of the obama administration. >> they did not issue an apology. it was issued in anticipation of the reaction to the film. but they did not apologize. it took a clear position denouncing that kind of activity respecting the sensitivity of people of their religious faith. >> and how did expressing the sensitivity work out? >> it didn't. that does not mean they should not have tried. klutzy do not have the

government of the united states trying to appease a mob. the mob was on it's way. >> that's not the last word. we will have more on the middle east. >> the administration sent mixed signals to those attacked our embassy. egypt and to the world. >> "the wall street journal" says the u.s. is perceived as a declining power. as the perception spreads, the world's bad actors are asserting themselves to fill a vacuum and american interests will become targets unless the trend is reversed. those moms in the middle east and a declining power. colby, do you agree? >> they were responding to what they saw as an insult to the prophet mohammad. you have people exploiting the situation. perhaps this happened in libya, but they've were bent on doing

exactly what they did. >> was this plan that? -- was this planned? >>there is some evidence that it was planned. >> but it's no 9/11. >> we have to get all the facts right. this has been really confusing. we did not know if the ambassador was actually killed. the first report it was outside in a car bomb. then you hear it was inside the consulate. do not just shoot from the hip because you feel a certain way in your gut. >> there is a danger to global reaction. -- over-reaction. there was an interesting column in "the washington post" s aying there are these mobs who are quick to jump and then their rival radical groups like to exploit the situation and that is a threat to the egyptian and libyan regime.

if mr. the pot to much, it will hurt their regimes. >> what is our relationship with the givebacks the president said there were not an ally. -- what is our situation with egypt? the president said they are not our ally. >> it's not great. with a better chance of working with the muslim brotherhood. >> i think that was a mistake for the president to say that. i think you tried to put some distance in there, but that's wrong. we better have a relationshipwe have put billions of dollarshow can you not call that an alliance? >> you call it a work in progress. we do have an established relationship. it is a work in progress in us getting to know who the new leadership is. we still send them billions of dollars a year. that is a real relationship that we have. >> not since its birth six as

israel been cast adrift by its closest allies. those were your words in your column this week talking about netanyahu wanting a red line in iran. >> the look at what is happening, there's nothing happening that would give confidence to anyone that there is any slowing of the iranian program. the program is not slowing and. it is accelerating. they have doubled the number of centrifuges at the facility. the negotiations which we had this year, the ones in baghdad and is tumble completely collapsed despite the fact we were willing to make a concession.

120 nations showed up in tehran. every argument has been shown not to work. they will not have any capacity to actually attack the program. that is why it has reacted. if they did not act, we will have to. >> this is so much more important. this is a classic lose-lose situation. we do not know what the consequences are, but they will be bad. but we allow them to build a bomb, it will be bad consequences. either way, the united states loses. >> >> lose-lose, colby. >> word came from tel aviv that

to meetident declined with netanyahu. direction youne can take now. we take this out of presidential politics. they're in a bad neighborhood with a bad neighbor. it will have to do something about that regime. i ran as a threat. >> last july, the defense thatster told wolf but silitzer

obama has done more for israel than anyone has in the past. >> it is clear that netanyahu does not agree with that. it is are they back to a presidential campaign in which a foreign figure has inserted themselves so obviously into a presidential election. meeting with romney in israel, essentially endorsing him. we have had reports of wealthy jewish politically active donors going to visit him in israel. he is really a character in terms of foreign affairs. what that means, we will see. whether this is good or bad, we will find out more about it. it is something that is rare to see. that is a character we pay attention to politically.

>> i do not think prime minister netanyahu is injecting himself into the political campaign. we still have this going on. what is at stake from israel's point of view is you have to take the position they're taking now. it is not a question of whether or not it was well-received. i think he would be received well. >> obama went to israel as a

candid in 2008. he did what every candid it does. they're not the one who established the electoral cannot -- calendar. colby's right. the problem is the calendar and the clock. they're putting all of their stuff under a mountain. once it is all in there. it can never be attacked. they can never be stopped from being in nuclear power. >> if that is all you have, then new delhi. you hope in the end there will be a revolution and the government will change. you have nukes in the hand of a friendly regime, france, britain, india. they do not have nightmares. it is the regime. >> how much will the american

people tolerate? iraq, iran. has netanyahu drawn his own redline? >> of course he did. it was said by the defense minister. the iranian program is so hard and that it is when israel will hit. they have said that publicly. >> will romney called on israel? >> do you give a red light, yellow light, or a green light? >> it is clear he has. >> what light will romney get? >> it they should give a yellow light saying we cannot and will not attack. therefore, we will allow you to do we need to do.

we will not order them to attack. >> does the chicago school strikeouts ramifications for our presidential election? >> i told them i could not make it in today because i did not have child care. i could not do my job because i had no awareness of my childhood. -- know where to send my child. >> they're complaining about child care. 350,000 kids not in school. it's not about the money but grading the teachers. mayor rahm emmanuel butting heads. last seen in washington as the white house chief of staff for the obama administration. is this going down ramifications for our presidential election? >> i do not think it will. this is a fight between the mayor and his teachers union. >> 23 other states are debating the same stuff. >> that's a bigger issue. the reforms that you look at the in what they're doing in chicago, they're cutting edge. it is butting up against the way

things have been on for a long time. it is not just that there are lots of experiments being done in cities to try to improve schools. in d.c., we had big fights about some other issues. >> we have a lot of charter schools. >> the administration is supportive of many of those types of experiments. the education department has encouraged it in many ways for the same reason, just trying to get verification system back up and moving -- our education system back up higher and moving in a direction in which the kids have the skills they need. short-term, it will not affect this president. >> this is huge. politically, it's huge because the teacher unions historically have helped democrats get elected. obama is putting at risk is support from the teachers' union. >> they are helping him. >> if this strike went on and

really had to take a position, he would risk losing a lot of unions. rahm emmanuel is a hero on this. things in chicago were a joke. they had a very short school year. the teachers needed to get in the real world on that. he is a hero. >> this is not about teacher qualifications. >> it is also about teacher caugaccountability. it is inevitable. it is the case in the nation's capital and elsewhere. look at the performance of the school system. there is a large percentage of kids to do not complete school in chicago. the school system was run by arne duncan, now the secretary of vacation. he was in charge of that school system. >> are caught the teachers make on average $76,000 per year.

he wants longer school days and a longer school year. >> the average earner in chicago earns $47,000 per year. you get people earning x amount paid teachers who make 50% more and who were offered a 16% increase in salary and yet when on strike precisely because they do not want to be held accountable. i think ron manual is right. i hope he clenches this deal by sending the head of the teachers' union, as he once did in the past, a dead fish. that often works in these kind of negotiations. >> voter i.d. what challenged in pennsylvania. >> we are here for one thing -- to let the governor and republican legislators know that the voter i.d. is wrong, based on a lie. >> the president of the philadelphia naacp. the supreme court of pennsylvania was hearing arguments against the state's

new voter ideologue. 758,000 registered pennsylvania voters do not qualify. what does that mean for the election? >> it's hard to tell. in part because in pennsylvania, unlike some of the other states to have issued these things, it is a big swath of people. they are pretty diverse. you go from urban people who do not have the id to seniors. it catches people who traditionally vote republican and people who traditionally vote democratic. >> you have to have identification to get on an airplane, drive a car. >> in texas, the have a similar law. it was greeted by a special panel including a court of appeals judge because the voter i.d. requires them to buy their identification. in some cases, it economically

hits hard on some people. the fact that the head of the republican party in pennsylvania shared this law saying that it would take certain voters out of the polling places it tells us something right there. they think it will be good for them. >> it's no question that these laws favor republicans. it depresses voter turnout. it is more typically for democrats. >> is that what it is about, suppressing voter turnout? >> it the look at the supreme court indiana decision in 2008, the opinion was 6-3 written by that liberal john paul stevens saying it was absolutely constitutional. there was no reason it could not be enforced. it wasn't -- it was up held. >> the batting record is not so good. >> it if someone brings in a ring or a dead man and you have voted coming have just lost your vote. they cancel each other route. >> it has had an onerous impact,

a disparate impact, on minorities. >> finally, bradley birkenfeld, the irs awarded $104 million to him by exploiting how the bank ubs was helping american side money offshore. he was currently residing in new hampshire halfway house after doing more than one year in federal lockup for his role in the tax evasion scheme. he will be further punished for his sins of the well because the will have to pay taxes on the $104 million as regular income. bradley birkenfeld gets the last word. thank you. we will see you next week. what's great transcript of this broadcast, log onto insidewashington.tv. >> "inside washington" icamer

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